


The Guilted and Faded Notions

by amtrak12



Category: Warehouse 13
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-17
Updated: 2014-06-17
Packaged: 2018-02-05 01:48:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,504
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1800982
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amtrak12/pseuds/amtrak12
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What started as a song verse not leaving my head turned into Bering and Wells moving on from the past and having the conversation they never got to have on screen. Takes place in a vague post-Instinct world that ignores later aired episodes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Guilted and Faded Notions

**Author's Note:**

> A Bering and Wells 8tracks playlist used "Through the Ghost" by Shinedown. I became obsessed with the lyrics because it fit Myka's POV post-Instinct (and during Instinct) so I finally wrote a one-shot to address it. It became way more difficult to edit than a one-shot is supposed to be, but I finally sorted it out.

Helena "H.G." Wells in all of her brilliant, corporeal glory stands with them in the warehouse aisle working to fix the artifact identification and security system. Artifacts have been jumping and swapping locations without triggering the alarms. It's not a difficult or even pressing problem – nothing’s been damaged or caused damage - and yet, for some reason, here Helena stands.

"No, not - don't fiddle with that one. That one's fine," Artie says.

"Do you command Claudia like this? It's a miracle she manages any improvements at all."

Myka watches with Steve at a distance so as not to crowd them. Helena looks right at home against the shelves with her hair loose and brushing against the back of her button-down shirt. None of the flowing vests and outfits she'd been wearing lately. No, she's firmly in her H.G. wardrobe for this.

"She usually ignores me," Artie replies.

"There's a reason for that." Helena disconnects a wire, and all of the screens down their aisle go dark.

"Do you see what you did?!"

"It was intentional."

Steve shoots over a look, but Myka can't muster a smile. Her chest is too tight. Something is boiling inside, and if she moves, it will all spill over.

"You have no idea what you're doing."

"My, it sure is dark in here. If only I could see."

Artie growls a sigh and adjusts the flashlight beam.

"Oh, would you look at that? Portable light! What will this modern age think of next?"

Myka's ears ring.

"I'll be right back," she mutters and breezes past Steve for the front of the warehouse. She doesn't stop when she reaches the office. Even up here, Helena's presence seems to reverberate through the walls. Myka summons open the umbilicus and continues on until she bursts out the door into the desert.

The sunlight blinds. Warm air pushes by on the wind, and Myka gasps. She can breathe again.

Her boots crunch in the dirt as she marches left: satisfying scrapes of grit and pebbles. Helena didn't want this life. Helena walked away. She found a surrogate daughter in Wisconsin and settled down far from Univille. She doesn't want to be here.

Myka reaches the corner of the warehouse and halts. There was that text message last month, a simple and casual message that was almost - _almost_ \- good news. Helena's moved out. To an apartment in Boone, Wisconsin.

Boone. Still Boone. She's still not coming back.

Yet she's inside, right now, tearing apart artifact ID screens like it's normal.

Myka spins around. She can't walk back towards the door, but she needs to walk somewhere. She needs to hear the crunching of her steps.

So she paces, back and forth by the corner, the sun flipping between blinding and hidden. She paces and marches and fumes and what the hell is she supposed to do?

Why is Helena here?

The door opens, and Myka flinches. Pete followed her. Of course he did. How much will he let her hide this time?

... No, it isn't Pete. Pete's in Idaho with Claudia tracking an artifact. Myka turns around, her heart pounding.

Helena has already spotted her and is walking over.

Shit.

"Fix the alarm system already?" She can sound completely fine. She can pretend this visit isn't everything and devastatingly nothing at the same time.

"Not quite," Helena answers when she's closer. Myka crosses her arms to keep her hands from fidgeting. Helena pulls up to a stop a couple of feet in front of her. The sun lies just behind the edge of the warehouse roof. An inch to the left and the glare will sweep over them. Myka squints. Her sunglasses are in the car.

"Actually," Helena continues, "I can't see anything that needs fixing. Claudia should look again seeing as she knows the system better, but as far as I can tell, everything's in complete working order."

"Complete working order and yet disturbances aren't triggering the alarms?"

Helena quirks her head and gives a wry smile. "Could be just the warehouse. Artifacts do have the frustrating habit of controlling their surroundings to suit their whims."

"Great, so it's not working, but there's nothing wrong with it. Very helpful." Myka shifts her eyes to stare at the warehouse and tucks back some curls the breeze pushes in front of her face.

"It's not as if I'm an expert on it," Helena says. "I warned Artie when he called that I had very little to do with Warehouse 12's artifact sensors and that those sensors were nothing like the new electronic ones you use."

Myka's jaw clenches. Most of the shelves use sensors that are fifty years old. "So why did you come here?"

"Artie was rather insistent. It seems Claudia wasn't investigating the problem as quickly as he would have liked." Helena rolls her eyes. "Is he more impatient these days or has he always been this irritable?"

Artie is Artie and Helena would know this if she was ever around. "Why are you here?" Myka shrugs. "You're not helping. You're not staying. We both know you're not staying." Her heart pounds behind her ears. "So why bother coming at all? What's the point of you being here?"

Helena stares and then slowly shakes her head. "What answer are you looking for?"

"Anything," Myka says. "Anything at all that explains why you're at the warehouse when you said this wasn't your life anymore."

"I'm not returning as an agent." Helena says the words slowly, carefully, like Myka doesn't understand, like Myka wasn't cut in half by them back in Wisconsin. "I can't ever be an agent again, so please, don't ask me."

"You could," the retort bursts out. It's a reflex because Myka's so sick of the words 'I can't'. I can't, I can't, I can't - Helena can. Helena can do anything, but she's too stubborn and self-destructive and just all around goddamn irritating. She _can_ and she should know it.

"I don't want to be."

The air disappears.

"That doesn't mean I'm not curious how the team is doing or that I don’t want to stop in now and again to help. Not on missions, of course." Helena runs her fingers through her hair, the wind still tousling the ends. "But I do still enjoy machinery and gadgetry, fixing things. I can help with those."

Part-time H.G. Rarely seen, part-time H.G, that's all she'll ever have. "You can't do that. You can't - you can't just walk in and out like that. It doesn't work." The dusty surroundings start to blur.

"Myka -"

"No." Myka forces her eyes to meet Helena's fully. "This is your life. You're supposed to be here, at the warehouse. This is where you belong!"

A second of silence. "I know you love this life."

Myka huffs and half turns away. Helena's going to argue. She's going to argue and then keep arguing because Helena's gone. She really isn't coming back.

"But not every agent does. Not every agent is so thoroughly suited for this life."

Her chest hurts. Myka shifts and recrosses her arms as the tears slip out. She fights harder to keep the rest back. It's not fair. She's never going to see Helena again. Everything's over before it began.

"I just couldn't do it anymore. The constant reminders of my failures, artifacts practically mocking me for my past endeavors. I don't want that life. Even if everything goes right, even if I'm never tempted to hurt someone or fall into that rage again, I still don't want the life of a warehouse agent. I... I miss discovering things."

"In Wisconsin?" Who discovers things in Wisconsin? Discovers what? She glances over, sees Helena's eyes soften, and quickly looks back away.

"Adelaide's there. I still have contact with her. I still get to see her some nights. Where else am I going to go?"

"Clearly nowhere." She's foolish, she's foolish. Helena left months ago. She should have already accepted that.

"Myka, for god's sake. Please, why does it matter so much to you that I'm an agent?"

Myka swipes at the tear tracks on her cheeks. "It doesn't."

"That's a lie."

Myka continues brushing away the tears, but they're starting to get replaced. _Stop that._

"Myka, please." Helena steps forward. "I have let you down in a great number of ways, but I don't understand this one."

God, she's standing so close. "I just miss you." Stop the tears. Take a breath. Stop the tears. Take a breath. Stop the tears.

"With agents always on the move, I suppose the warehouse doesn't lend itself to regular contact and visits."

"But you should be here. You should be here." She shakes her head. "God." If she forces another breath, the tears will disappear. If she breathes again, they'll end.

"Myka..."

How did Helena get closer? Why isn't she always right here in sight? "It's just, you always leave. You always leave, and it hurts because I want you to stay. I wanted you to stay." For once. Finally, to stay once and for all.

"I thought you'd be doing fine without me around." Myka looks back to her and Helena glances off to the side in a self-deprecating roll of her eyes. "Less tension, less reminders of certain betrayals."

"No. No, no, don't you dare try to say you leave because you think I'd be better off without you. Don't you dare." The tears have stopped.

"Well of course that wasn't the reason," Helena says. "I really and honestly do not want to work for the warehouse anymore. But I didn't... I suppose I never thought you would feel my absence quite as much as you do."

What? That's... how does that...? "I don't even know how to respond to that." Myka pulls away and resumes her pacing. Anything to move and to keep from facing Helena. "No, you know what," she strides back and glares at Helena. "That's bullshit. You don't exist in some bizarre vacuum where you can easily be forgotten or ignored. You're not evil. You're not unimportant or unloved or whatever the hell you think you are, so just get over yourself. You can't just hide and erase yourself. That's not how life works."

She takes a breath. Then another. Shit. Myka walks off without a response. She really, really can't be around Helena anymore. She reaches the car, gets inside, and slams the door, ready to bolt.

Except she doesn't have the keys. She doesn't have the keys, and she really doesn’t have anywhere else to go except the inn and what is she going to do there? Stew in her room?

She slaps the radio and mutters "dammit" under her breath. She stares down at the console and lets the heat of the sun-cooked car wash over her.

A couple minutes pass. God, it really is hot in here.

Myka jumps when the passenger door opens and Helena climbs inside. She shuts the door, and Myka stares. Waits.

"Doesn't this car have air conditioning?"

Oo-kay. "I left the keys inside."

"Well, that's inconvenient." Helena examines the door and the window, but still hasn't looked at Myka once. "Why on earth is there not a secondary manual option to roll down the window on these things? What happens when the power goes out? Or you drive into a lake?"

Myka bites her lip. Has Helena ever seen a car with manual windows or did she just pop up with that option on her own?

She opens her door and that gets Helena's eyes on her. Of course they're unreadable, but still. Helena's looking at her.

"Open your door." Myka shrugs. "We'll at least get the breeze then."

Helena raises an eyebrow, though it can't be with skepticism at the logic. She opens her door, and they immediately get some relief from the heat.

"I'm sorry." It feels like the appropriate conversation starter. "I just... I get really frustrated whenever you pretend you’re this awful person.”

"For the record," Helena says, “I'm entirely aware I'm not the devil incarnate or anything else like it."

Myka raises her eyebrow. Hopefully, Helena understands that this is meant to be skeptical.

"But I still don't understand how you're so attached to me," Helena continues. Myka frowns. "I don't understand how I manage to hurt you just by being gone, how you can care. And it's not even that you don't know me." Her voice grows rush as it takes on a rougher quality. "You've met me at my very worst. You've seen me try to destroy the entire world. You've -" she cuts herself off, and Myka fights to not interrupt. For once, this isn't the time to defend Helena to herself.

After another moment's pause, Helena speaks again, "You know I never meant to tell you about Christina. Or anyone. That wasn't in my plans. It should've never mattered to you what I took from the Escher Vault. It was only my personal possessions, nothing dangerous the warehouse should've been worried about."

"Wasn't Lizzie Borden's compact in the vault?"

Helena looks at her, considers for a moment, and then looks away with a nod. "Right. I keep forgetting I had that. I'm afraid I don't remember my last case before being bronzed very well. I remember it was the compact. I must have still had it on me when... and… but I don't remember the retrieval itself." She gives Myka a resigned smile. "Another reason I shouldn't be a warehouse agent." The smile falls away. "Another of many."

The silence isn't comfortable. Myka turns to stare out the windshield for a while. It sucks because the warehouse isn't that bad. The cases can go okay, and they're usually able to help somebody, sometimes lots of somebodies. But then Helena's been through and seen a lot more than any of the rest of them. There isn’t really a way to convince her the warehouse can be good, not one that would work.

Helena's staring at her. She can see it in her peripheral vision. Myka turns back to meet the stare.

"You know, you do know me better than anyone else."

She says it softly, just a touch louder than a whisper and with a hint of something that sounds way too frightenly close to reverence. Myka has to shake her head and look away.

"Yeah, except I keep trying to dictate your life."

"You don't."

"Yes. I do. I keep trying to tell you what to do and where you should be. Who you should be." And the desire to dictate and demand is still so strong, but she needs to stop and let Helena live her own life. For real this time.

"But that's not what you're doing," Helena says. "Not really."

Myka eyes her. Is Helena serious? That's exactly what she's been doing.

But no, Helena seems serious. "Dictating or controlling me has never really been your intentions."

"Well, I didn't mean to, no, but that's still what I've been doing." She stares down at the steering wheel.

"You miss me."

There's one stitch in the steering wheel cover. One insignificant stitch that she can't pull her eyes from now.

"Sometimes," her heartbeat tries to close her throat, but the words are more stubborn. "Sometimes, I think I've always missed you." She shakes her head. "Which is ridiculous, because you have to have something, some happy memory, in order to miss someone, but you always seem to be gone so how could I have one of those?" She's not looking at the stitch anymore. She's not really looking at anything. "And sometimes, I think back to that time before Yellowstone and Egypt when you were reinstated - and Artie was so horrible and Pete and Claudia weren't really comfortable with you, and I have _no idea_ what you were going through, but it must have been awful because... and yet I think about that time sometimes like it was some wonderful period and that" - she shakes her head and an empty laugh escapes - "is so pathetic."

Tears are threatening to form again. She takes a deep breath to clear them.

"It wasn't all terrible."

Myka cautiously raises her gaze to Helena. Helena's own eyes seem to waver in the light and she looks... unraveled. Barely composed the way she'd appeared in front of Myka so long ago in the bookstore.

Helena looks honest.

"Yes, after being unbronzed, the good moments were few, and they never had anything to do with the warehouse. It was only the people who worked there that I came to care about, as much as I hadn't meant to care about anyone." Helena breathes deeply and runs her hand through her hair. She bumps the car roof, but ignores it and continues speaking. "But before everything, before I lost my Christina, I did enjoy the warehouse." She smiles. "Largely due to Caturanga's influence, I imagine. Change the rules - he taught me that applied to science just as much as society's inconsistent standards."

"And also chess."

She meant it... if not in a light-hearted way, then at least not in a heavy, subduing way. But there's something so, so serious in Helena's expression now as she gazes at Myka.

"Yes, also chess." Helena shifts in her seat to face Myka more fully. "I could come back. Just to the warehouse, not as an agent."

"But... what?" She can't switch gears this quickly. "What are you.... You don't want to come back."

"I don't want to be an agent." Helena says this like there's a difference. But maybe there is. "As for the rest, I seem to be in the position where I would like to see Adelaide, to still have contact with her, but I don't," she shakes her head. "I admit I don't have much desire to return to Boone." A slight smile. "You were right about that much. That place isn't home."

This doesn't feel real. "I'm pretty sure my words were to _make_ that your home."

Helena nods, and her expression seems to clear as she settles with her chin held higher. "In that case, I stubbornly defied you." There’s a sparkle in her eye. "Stop trying to dictate my life."

Slowly. Slowly the grin pulls at Myka. It grows and grows until it breaks into a laugh. Helena smiles back, more genuine this time, and Myka laughs again.

"Okay." She nods and glances at Helena before looking back out front. "Okay."

The smile stays. There's a tiny glow in her chest that she wants to hold on to. This is what she wants to stick around, the rare, precious moments where no one is dying or leaving and everything seems okay, when Helena's here and she can smile. But those moments are so fragile. Any kind of touch could break it.

Helena leans over. Her hand first finds Myka's, and then she's up close and her lips kiss Myka's cheek. 

Warmth spreads over Myka's neck and face, both from the feel of Helena’s breath and her closeness. She tries to stay still so the kiss doesn’t end too early.

Helena moves back and rests her head against the side of Myka's. "You should know that you were the first person I became attached to in this new world," she whispers.

Helena stays leaning against her. Myka grips her hand tighter like it'll keep that whisper alive and real. Like it will turn this into something concrete.

"You're really coming back?" Her voice shakes. She moves her head, prompting Helena to pull back, and she searches Helena’s eyes for anything. Any kind of sign.

Helena starts to nod and then abruptly stops. She flashes a smile. "Do you think Artie would allow a section of the warehouse to be commandeered for my workshop?"

Myka would forge any signatures and clear out the space herself, if need be. "You may not need his permission if you just kind of take over the space in secret. That's how Pete got his Pete Cave."

"Pete Cave?" Helena's amusement makes her nose scrunch up.

"Don't ask." Myka shakes her head with a chuckle. Then, it hits her and she just stares at Helena.

Helena's coming back. She's really coming back.

"What is it?" Helena asks.

She's coming back.

Myka leans forward and pulls Helena into a tight hug. She startles Helena. There’s a delay. Then, Helena tries to move her arms to return the hug, but Myka has one of them trapped against the seat.

"I'm not sure automobiles were made for hugging."

"Then, I'll also hug you again later." The awkward angle really doesn't matter, nor does the uncomfortable pull in her back and hip. All of it is entirely and completely okay.

Helena shifts and pushes herself more upright and suddenly the hug works better. Helena’s hands can wrap around her back. Myka grins and adjusts to the new position. She tilts her head more comfortably, pulls closer, and holds Helena tight.

She's coming home. Helena is coming home.

Finally.


End file.
